The invention concerns a radiophone having a user interface comprising a display and a keypad including at least one operation key whose function is controlled by a controller unit and is displayed in a predetermined area of said display.
The term xe2x80x9cradiophonexe2x80x9d covers a portable or mobile unit which, with a transmitter/receiver, is capable of transmitting signals with speech or data via electromagnetic waves/radio waves to another unit comprising a transmitter/receiver.
It is required by the users that the size of radiophones, e.g. in the form of portable telephones, be minimized, since this will make them easier to carry and to handle. This necessarily means that the area on the front of the telephone will be reduced, and since it is the front which forms the basis for the major part of the Man-Machine-Interface (MMI), this will be reduced correspondingly. The user interface comprises a keypad for entering instructions, a display for displaying information, and a microphone as well as an earpiece for picking up and emitting sound signals.
The last five to ten years have seen a tremendous development in such telephones, where more and more features have become accessible in the telephonesxe2x80x94without a corresponding change in the interface. The extent to which these features is used, varies much from user to user.
In accordance with the present invention there is provided a radiophone comprising a user interface and a control unit connected to the user interface, said user interface comprising a display and a keypad having at least one operation key whose function is controlled by the controller unit and is displayed in a predetermined part of said display, said radiophone being capable of assuming a plurality of states in which a group of predetermined actions associated with the state concerned may be performed by means of said at least one operation key, said controller unit displaying an action from said group of actuibs as a default function. The operation key or the soft key is hereby presented as default to perform an active action e.g. with the data which have been fetched from the memory of the telephone or have been input to the main area of the display. As default, this active action may be to make a call, while alternative functions may then be to save a telephone number in the phonebook, to edit it, to erase it, etc.
The invention provides a user interface for a radiophone which facilitates the normal operation, without this being at the expense of the amount of features.
Further, the radiophone may advantageously be provided with a scroll key by means of which the user may selectively jump to the preceding or succeeding item at the location concerned in the menu loop. In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the controller unit also redefines the function of the scroll key from scrolling between several items in a menu to switching from the default function to the group of functions to which the default function belongs. It is noted that, in the preferred embodiment, the scroll key toggles between the default function and the group of functions (options), but switches between items in the function group once this has been selected by means of the operation key. The default function is included here at the same level as the other functions in the group.
So far, the possible functions have been treated in a co-ordinated manner to a great extent, but the provision of a default option, which covers the major part of the activities which the user normally performs, will make it easier for the users to perform standard actions, without making the special actions more difficult to perform, since these are achieved via the group of possible functions. This ensures that when data are input to the main area of the display, an action may be performed on these data merely by a single manipulation of the operation key, which is a multi-function key. In the past, this was feasible only through the use of mono-function keys, such as xe2x80x9con-hookxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9coff-hookxe2x80x9d.
This means e.g. that the operation key, which is frequently referred to as a soft key since its function is not fixed, but may vary according to the state concerned, enables a call to be established by a single depression of the operation key when a telephone number is present in the display.
In addition to redefining the functions of the operation key and the scroll key in the preferred embodiment, the controller unit may also advantageously redefine the function of the erase key, so that the erase key, during a telephone call and when detecting an incoming call, changes its function from erasing entered characters to interrupting the ongoing call or to rejecting the incoming call or to diverting it to a voice mail box.
If the user decides to make a call by means of the operation key, the phone changes its state to a xe2x80x9ccall establishedxe2x80x9d state when the call has been established, and then the new default function of the operation key will be to terminate the call. This means that another activation of the operation key will terminate the call. If a conference call is to be established, this is done by means of the scroll key via the group of possible functions associated with the state concerned.
It should be noted that said at least one operation key may comprise two or more keys whose default function changes when the state changes. Further, nothing prevents said at least one operation key from being integrated with said predetermined area(s) of the display as keys in a touch-sensitive display.